Toward a Coalition Framework, 2001–2005

Abstract

The terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 changed the security agenda of all NATO allies. The 19 allies declared in the Article 5 declaration of September 12, 2001 that they “stand ready to provide the assistance that may be required as a consequence of these acts of barbarism,” while they and other Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC) members, altogether 46 countries, in parallel pledged “to undertake all efforts to combat the scourge of terrorism.”1 The attacks thus brought to the forefront the “strategic perspectives”—focused on terrorism and other threats such as organized crime—that NATO had discussed at the Washington summit in April 1999 but which had been overshadowed by Kosovo and out-of-area crisis management. Although crisis management in 1999 had been labeled a “fundamental security task,” it was instantly apparent in September 2001 that terrorism would be a more fundamental concern: the attacks had come from abroad, had targeted the territory of an ally, and were thus an Article 5 threat—something crisis management as an out-of-area concern cannot aspire to be.